


manta rays

by flightofthebluealiens



Series: beatles songfics [1]
Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Background Stu/Astrid, Drunken Confessions, Drunken Kissing, Friends to Lovers, House Party, John is in love, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Misunderstandings, Pining, Songfic, Underage Drinking, Underage Drug Use, and also high, it's very small
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:34:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27586172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightofthebluealiens/pseuds/flightofthebluealiens
Summary: They go to a house party, and it should be like any other, except that Paul is reckless and headstrong-- well, that’s not unusual --anddrunk.It’s like any other night in that John is hopelessly in love with Paul, except that maybe he’s not as unattainable as previously thought.
Relationships: John Lennon/Paul McCartney
Series: beatles songfics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2016524
Comments: 5
Kudos: 51





	manta rays

On a Friday like this one, the day is gray and cloudy, and Liverpool filters in and out of silence. The rush of commuters driving to work in the morning gives way to nothing but the breeze, and then the quiet is broken by schoolchildren bursting off the buses and hustling to their sleepovers and family dinners and games of rugby.

But when the sun goes down at 7:32, there are only a few more moments of Woolton silence, just as itchy and heavy as the fabric in the neighborhood’s name.

When the sun goes down at 7:32, the remainder of the population comes alive. The teenagers, confident and yet deeply insecure, effervescent in the deformed way of those who are still young and naive and believe they can set the world on fire.

John puts on his favorite Van Halen record and air-guitars along in the mirror; makes faces at himself while he pencils on just enough eyeliner that he can probably make it out the door without Mimi demanding he washes it off. He spends an embarrassingly large amount of time poofing his hair up toward the sky, using enough hairspray to knock out a full-grown man.

With his nose, he can’t look like David Lee Roth. That’s not for lack of effort.

A pebble hits his window at 8:59. He opens up the shutters and pokes his head out, squinting at the tall, pale figure below. “You’re late,” he calls out.

“You’re not ready anyway,” Stu responds, just barely audible.

John grins and rests his chin on his hands. “Ah, you know me too well. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that patience is a virtue, my dear Romeo?”

“We’re gonna be late to pick up the kid if you don’t get your arse down here,” Stu says. He sounds harsh but John knows him too well, knows that he’s probably fighting a grin down there in the darkness.

“I’ll be down, jus’ a mo,” he says and shuts the window.

A couple of costume changes later, including the rejections of a poorly filled-out muscle shirt and some rather horrendous sweaters, John grabs his boots and tiptoes down the stairs. 

Long ago, he learned exactly which floorboards creak, and he learned exactly when the old house ‘settles’ for the night. So John is doing a remarkably good job of sneaking, especially considering the squeaky leather pants he’s wearing, but when he makes it to the bottom of the stairs the sitting-room lamp flicks on to reveal Mimi and Stu perched on the couch drinking tea.

“Holy shit!”

“Mind your tongue, John,” Mimi says mildly. She places her teacup back in its saucer. “If you’re home by midnight and you don’t wake up any of the boarders, we can pretend I didn’t just watch you try to sneak out.”

John gulps and nods. He may be stupid enough to attempt sneaking out, but he’s certainly not stupid enough to imagine they won’t have a _serious conversation_ about this upon his return. 

He shoots Stu a look and his friend stands up, polite as ever, thanking John’s aunt for the tea and then turning to John.

“You’re drivin’,” Stu says, tossing him the keys.

“What?” John wonders if Stu has ever seen him drive before. The seeing bit is the whole problem; John can’t.

Stu smiles sheepishly. “Astrid’s in the back.”

Mimi’s nostrils flare and John resists the urge to laugh. “None of that… that _petting_ for you, boy,” she says, vaguely threatening.

John feigns shock. “Oh, Mimi, I would _never._ ”

He declines to mention that Stu and Astrid are probably going to be doing more than snogging. Maybe he’s still in denial about whatever horrors he's about to witness.

Ushered outside, he doesn’t have much further room for denial when Stu opens the rear door of the truck and practically throws himself into his girlfriend’s arms.

“Fuckin’ gross,” John mutters as he climbs in the front seat of Stu’s hideous pickup. It’s oddly American for a very Liverpudlian teenager. “I don’t wanna see that.”

He looks at them in the rearview mirror and points a threatening finger. “Now, if I see, hear, or _smell_ anything back there--”

“Hi, John,” Astrid says. Looks aghast.

“I am goin’ to kick you out of the fuckin’ truck.”

“It’s my truck,” protests Stu. He adjusts his sunglasses on his nose. Stu thinks they make him look like James Dean and John thinks they make him look like a complete idiot. _It’s pitch-black outside, are you daft?_ He wonders if Astrid likes being seen with him during times like this. 

The times are 9:15 and they’re going to be _late,_ as Stu now reminds him.

“I’m goin’, I’m goin’,” John mutters and pulls the truck out of the driveway. They swerve wildly onto the road and he thinks he can hear the rustle of the curtains as Mimi shuts them, possibly thrown to the floor and having a heart attack at the idea of her nephew ever driving.

They ride in silence and John can see his friends snogging in the rearview mirror. As they weave through the main streets of downtown Liverpool, the smacking sounds of their lips get louder and louder until it’s too much to bear and John flips on the radio.

_And if a double-decker bus cra-a-ashes into us,_ Morrissey croons, _to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die._ It almost blocks out the wet sounds and John wrinkles his nose up in disgust. He watches the lights of the city pass and wonders if the couple would notice had a double-decker bus crashed into them now.

Finally, _finally,_ they pull up at the house. John honks once and immediately, Paul’s dark head is out the window. He waves and disappears back inside, then John spies a gangly leg poking out and Paul shimmies down the pipe on the side of the house as though he’s been doing it his whole life. He’s carrying something in his left hand and is careful not to break it as he drops on hands-and-knees to the ground. John rolls down the car window.

“John!” Paul exclaims cheerfully as he approaches. “Where’s Stuart? George an’ Ringo?”

“We’re meetin’ them there,” Stu cuts in, leaning between the front two seats and over the console. “Hi.”

There’s always been some strange competition between Paul and Stu; the competition may well be _who can make our friends most uncomfortable_ because John and Astrid exchange a look in the rearview mirror and… well, they’re both winning. 

He wonders why Paul insists on calling Stu _Stuart_ as though they’ve just met.

“Hi, Stuart,” Paul says, proving John’s point. “Front seat, then?”

“Please,” John says, and wishes he hadn’t. As always, it is not a ‘please sit in the front seat’ so much as it is _please_ smile at me and _please_ pay attention to me; on his worst days, it is _please_ love me back. And as always, Paul beams at the request and obliges.

“Oh, hey, Astrid,” Paul says. Climbs into the passenger seat and looks over his shoulder.

“Hello,” Astrid says and returns to sucking Stu’s face off.

Paul turns back to John and gives him that look: raised eyebrows like crescent moons, slight smirk, and the accompanying wrinkled nose. John makes a face at him and Paul giggles. He has to turn back to the road, lest he do something ill-advised like kissing Paul on the nose. 

Whitney Houston is screeching over the speakers and John frowns.

Paul must see the look on his face because he reveals the item he’s been clutching: a cassette, the black-ink title illegible because of his messy handwriting.

John nods, glancing at the cassette and then at the rearview mirror, wrinkling his nose up. “Go on, then.”

The wide grin on Paul’s face almost makes up for the song that comes on next.

The infamous camera shutters… the offbeat drum crashes.

“ _See them walkin’ hand in hand across the bridge at midnight,_ ” Paul sings along with Simon le Bon, who’s voice John is ashamed to recognize. He groans, hitting his forehead against the steering wheel. The laugh that the action produces makes him do it again. “ _Heads turning at the lights flashing out, it’s so bright._ ”

_Of course, he’d pick a song I can’t stand,_ John thinks. _He’s probably the only one I’d allow that from._ Whatever. He can tolerate Duran Duran for three minutes.

The next song is Tears for Fears, and INXS follows. Paul is cackling more than singing by the time John snaps “bloody fuckin’ pop stars” and mutes the speakers, but he can’t resist turning the sound back on, not when Paul looks at him with those puppy-dog eyes and pouty lips.

Okay, so he can tolerate daft pop music for fifteen minutes. _Whatever._

Outside the car window, fellow teenagers wander the neighborhood. It almost looks like a zombie apocalypse, if a zombie apocalypse was filled with blonde perms and an overabundance of rugby shirts. Girls with teeny waists swing leather handbags and bat their clumpy eyelashes at the boys they’re with, all sporting stiff gelled mullets and muscular chests that seem to be artificially inflated, like balloons. John feels out-of-place among them, driving a loud and bulky truck that isn’t his, wearing leather pants and eyeliner. Queer for one of his best mates.

The best mate in question has endlessly better eyelashes than the girls out on the sidewalk. As they drive past a streetlight, Paul’s eyelashes cast long dark shadows on his pale cheeks, glowing orange just like the lamp. John takes a shaky breath and forces himself to take it slow.

He also forces himself to look back at the road before he runs over some dyed-platinum bimbos and their jock boyfriends.

When they arrive at the party, it’s already a disaster. Tommy’s house has toilet paper strewn over one of the hedges out front, which smells rather suspicious as they pass it. _Well, I suppose that_ is _the proper use of toilet paper._ A car is half-parked in the other hedge. Smashed bottles and drunken teenagers litter the lawn.

George and Ringo are waiting in the foyer when they come in, already nursing drinks.

“Ah, there our blokes are. An’ lady, of course,” Ringo says, glancing at Astrid. “Told you they would show up.”

“Twenty minutes late,” George says, tipping his head back to gulp whatever red substance is in his plastic cup. John suspects it’s been spiked, based on the slow, sloppy grin George gives him. “Can’t you bastards ever be on time?”

“They were late to my house, too,” Paul points out. “My da nearly caught me leavin’.”

“Shouldn’t go to the party if you’re scared of Daddy findin’ out,” Stu mutters, and Astrid and George giggle along with him.

Paul’s face colors in shame and John goes on the defensive at the sight. Snaps: “I seem to recall you nearly pissin’ yourself when we found a Playboy magazine four years ago. An’ you were Paul’s age, weren’t ya, Stu? What if _your_ daddy found out?”

There’s silence between the group. Stu’s face is unreadable behind his dark glasses.

Thank God for saintly Stu.

“Forget I said anythin’,” Stu says if only to neutralize the clear argument John is trying to start. “Let’s just go have some fun.” And he smiles at John. Takes Astrid’s hand and disappears onto the makeshift dance floor set up in Tommy’s sitting room.

A moment, a beat in a song that they all recognize but don’t know the lyrics to.

“Why’ve you always gotta be an arse?” George says and they all force laughter. It’s stiff and puppetlike and it diffuses the tension if only a little.

“He started it,” says John, at the same moment Paul says “I want a beer.”

George, Ringo, and John exchange a look. It’s always been like that between them, a matter of reading each other’s brainwaves. It helps when they’re all on the same frequency, and they are almost instantly: _we definitely can’t let him have a beer._

“I don’t reckon that’s a good idea,” John says.

“Have you ever had a drink before?” asks George, almost with contempt.

“Probably not the bes’ decision, if you’ve gotta go home tonight,” says Ringo. “How about some water, yeah?” He’s always kinder than George about things like this.

Paul looks between the three of them and frowns so deeply it cuts little lines in his skin. John wants to reach out and smooth them over, both physically and verbally, wants to see that smile again. So when Paul says “you’re all spoilsports,” John changes his mind.

“Oh, fine,” John allows. “Let the lad have one beer.”

George and Ringo shoot looks his way, George particularly accusing. He ignores them and puts his palm flat on Paul’s lower back, leading him toward the kitchen.

“We’ll only be a moment,” he calls over his shoulder and doesn’t miss the grin on Paul’s face.

He pops the lid on two cans and pours drinks for both him and Paul, passes the plastic cup over, and watches Paul bring it to his lips.

_I should paint that smile. I would listen to his bloody pop stars for hours if it got him to hold still so I could paint that smile._

Such full, beautiful lips. He belongs on canvas.

John wishes he belonged to him, but he knows the score. So he settles for the little moments, settles for laughing at the disgusted look Paul gives him once he’s had a sip.

“So this is your first drink, then?”

“Well, yeah,” says Paul. Sips it gingerly once again. “Not much opportunity with a menace like my da in the house.”

“You should try Mimi,” John responds. He takes a couple of sips of his beer. He has a feeling he’s going to need it to get through a night here. “I’ve been stealing seltzer from Pete’s mum since I was thirteen.”

“That’s far too young to be drinkin’,” Paul says, and John sees a flash of what might be, one day: the stern father, protective and solemn. John can’t help but smile.

“You’re only fourteen. Hardly a year’s difference.”

And isn’t that the problem here anyway? Only fourteen. Too young to drink, too young for John to want the way he does, too young for all of this. 

He glances to his left and sees a girl shove her hand up into her dance partner’s groin; at his right some lad has his pants half off, holding the neck of a bottle of whiskey in his mouth and tipping his head back periodically to drink from it.

Paul does not belong here, with his soft face and innocent eyes and distaste for alcohol.

_He belongs on canvas._

John thinks he sees Paul’s face fall, just for a moment before he hurries to pick up the pieces and smile as though unbothered. “Well, you’re the one that let me have it.”

“Technically, I’m not supposed to be havin’ it either,” John whispers, mock-conspiring, leaning in closer than necessary. “Since I’m only seventeen an’ all. Underage drinkin’ is quite bad for you.”

“Kills brain cells, if you’re any example.”

“Oi,” scolds John, “watch your mouth. Talkin’ about your elders like that.”

They both laugh and Paul says “ooh, that’s Jenny, I’ll be right back” and John is left alone in the kitchen, nursing a beer he hardly wanted, and feelings he didn’t.

\------

John is standing in the sitting room, watching Paul take turns dancing with Jenny and Sarah and Lucille, flirting with each one as though they didn’t just watch him flirt with the others in green-eyed envy. John wonders if he looks as surly and jealous as they do, leaning up against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest and a faint buzz in his head.

Despite the Bowie song pumping through the entire house, shaking its foundations, he imagines that he can hear Paul’s voice above everything else. He thinks it might not be his imagination. The warm, sweet honey texture of Paul’s words slide over his skin. Stick to him. 

John wishes those words could be meant for him, but he knows this is just how it goes. This is how it will always be for him, and he hates himself for it but he wishes that these girls would reject Paul because they will never know how lucky they are. To have that little taste of honey. Paul leaning in to whisper and purr in their ears, maybe compliments, maybe innuendos or other provocations. John doesn’t know.

And that’s the whole problem. He _wants_ to know.

Maybe it’s wrong, especially since Paul is fourteen and a man ( _boy,_ really) and far too good for him, but he still wants to know. He wants Paul to put his hands far too low on his hips while they dance and murmur whatever he tells birds into John’s ears, whatever gets them to give him that look like he’s Jesus bloody Christ come back to the Earth.

But John probably looks at Paul like that already.

He watches Sarah shove Jenny aside for her turn with Paul, watches Paul stifle a laugh by biting down on his lower lip with one of his front teeth. John wants that too. 

John wishes that he didn’t know he was queer, that he could pretend his burning jealousy is a desire for the attention of the birds Paul seems to collect like bottle caps. But he’s known since he was Paul’s age and while maybe he could have wanted those girls a year ago he cannot bring himself to want anyone other than Paul now.

God, he wants him. John’s fingers tighten around his plastic cup of beer. He finally manages to tear his eyes away from the scene, feeling shameful, when George appears.

“We foun’ some weed,” George says, sparks of excitement in his eyes, visible somewhere behind the unfashionable mop of fringe. “I think it’s Tommy’s da’s. It was in the bedroom.”

“You’re fuckin’ insane. It’s the parents’ weed, an’ you think they’re not gonna notice it’s gone?” John asks.

He’s not particularly surprised George has managed to scrounge up some drugs; he’s more surprised George would be so reckless as to steal from Tommy’s parents… Tommy’s father being a police officer. This further enforces his belief that every cop in Liverpool is a hypocrite.

“They’re out for the weekend,” George protests. “They won’t even notice it’s gone until they get back, an’ it’s not like Tommy’s gonna remember who he smoked it with.”

“Jesus Christ. You’re _invitin’_ him to help you steal his da’s weed?”

“Since when do you care about this kinda shite?” asks George, starting to leave. “‘S not like Paul needs you here, anyway. Jus’ come upstairs an’ take a couple of hits.”

“That’s not what this is about,” John tells George but betrays himself by glancing over his shoulder as they leave the sitting room and ascend the stairs. Paul doesn’t notice him go, but that’s not new; Paul hasn’t looked at him for an hour. Too busy chasing skirt.

“He’s old enough to take care of himself,” George continues regardless. “We were doin’ all sorts of crazy shit at his age.”

_It’s different with him,_ John thinks. _He’s precious, something to be protected, and we were ugly bastards who liked to burn each other with cigarettes._

He doesn’t think Paul would have been able to cut it with them if they had all been the same age at the same time. George is too quick with his judgment. Ringo is a sweetheart, yes, but hides behind the facade of a thug; John is an arsehole who protects himself with harsh words and boldness that he doesn’t feel in his bones. Stu is the only one who might have liked Paul, in another life where he doesn’t think Paul is too young and gentle to hang with the likes of them.

John never reminds Stu that the two of them are from the poshest part of Liverpool, that they never have to carry a switchblade the way Ringo does. That they don’t rely on smokes to calm their jittering hands when they hear gunfire outside, the way George does.

He doesn’t remind Stu that Paul lives down the street from George and calls to make sure George is okay when they both hear the gunfire. That he bought Ringo a new blade for Christmas last year with the note _I hope you never need this._

That he calls John on the worst nights --when his insomnia is so bad he can’t even seem to lie down-- and plays terrible Joni Mitchell records until John passes out to escape them.

He loves Paul so much it burns his insides, almost as much as the smoke burns his lungs when he takes a too-deep inhale and chokes on the joint.

“Amateur,” some blond lad teases from across the room, and John doesn’t dignify it with a response. He is ascending to somewhere else. Where Paul and the night are his, and he can take the hands of the boy he loves and dance with him out on the hot, sweaty dance floor. Where Paul whispers into the curve of John’s ear and laughs when he flushes.

Where he is not sitting in a circle with a whole bunch of losers-- and George --and smoking old, smelly pot.

“Do you lot ever want to see the ocean?” a lad with hair like Billy Idol asks. He’s sucking on the joint like it’s a straw.

“What? Why bother?” asks Tommy, the host of the party and a rather beefy kid with deep-set, almost crossed eyes. He’s had more than weed; John wonders why he’s been holding out on them. “We’ve got the river, an’ the ocean isn’t much different. Too cold to swim in.”

“It’s not about that,” says the Billy Idol lad. “There’s so much to _discover,_ y’know?”

He sounds like Paul. John makes grabby hands for the joint and inhales desperately.

“Water an’ fish,” George says, his flat expression making clear his perceived blandness of the topic at hand. George only cares about old Bob Dylan records and fantasizing about being around to hear said records when they first came out. “What more is there?”

“ _What more is there?_ ” the kid asks incredulously. “Have you ever seen a manta ray? Things are fuckin’ huge. The giant oceanic manta ray has a nine-foot wingspan.”

“Shuddup, James,” the blond kid says. “Nobody wants to hear about yer boner for sea critters.” This gets a laugh out of a few people, but not John.

“Wonder if that’s true,” John muses.

“Of course it’s true, our Jamie’s a bit obsessive,” the blond kid says. “He wants to have a wank over some seahorses.” He giggles at his own joke. “ _Semen_ -horses.”

“Real funny,” says James, but the others are laughing along with blondie.

George takes another hit and the blunt’s almost gone but he passes it to John anyway. “You’ll jus’ have to look it up, John. Figure out if sea freak’s right.”

“‘S interestin’,” James whines. This doesn’t seem to impress the others, who mock him further, whimpering _oh, manta, baby,_ and _give me that stinger!_ John suddenly feels as though he is in a room full of children and crushes the butt of the blunt against the floor.

Much to Tommy’s indignation. “Oi, John, this is my mum’s room.”

“She’ll hardly notice,” says John absently, and hardly notices George adjusting the rug underneath the bed to cover up the little scorch spot on the hardwood.

George is saying something about wood staining when somebody yells from the top of the stairs, just outside their door and booming loud, unmistakable:

“ _McCartney’s doing a kegstand!_ ”

\------

George and John pound down the stairs, footsteps like elephants wandering through the jungle. Perhaps overweight, bodybuilding elephants, because the sound of their socked feet seem to echo over and over and over again, even above the din of the party. He can’t quite get enough air, running like this, and by the time they get onto the back porch, it’s clear: McCartney is indeed doing the keg stand, and it’s indeed his McCartney.

Not that there were a ton of others around, but you know. Had to be sure.

Paul is grinning as two people take hold of each of his scrawny legs, and he says something over his shoulder to one of them. The guy laughs and John’s stomach turns.

The two lads lift Paul, suspending him on his hands, and some girl is shoving the tube in his mouth. John’s face burns.

_How can this be my Paul?_ he wonders, thinking of the cheeky lad who had winced at the taste of beer not two hours ago. But Paul’s chugging like he’s been doing this his whole life, and the crowd of people surrounding is cheering and chanting. _Nine… ten… eleven…_

John wants to cover his ears and block out the noise. Wants to go back to the moment in the truck and tell Paul to play his Duran Duran as loud as he’d like if it means that he’ll stay with John during the party. Not have a beer. Not dance with all those girls and… _sweet bleedin’ Christ, who’s taught him to drink like this?_

The chanting has reached nineteen when Paul finally surfaces, coughing and spluttering but getting congratulated by everyone around. Getting pats on the back and smiles from people he hardly knows and who hardly know him.

“Damn,” George says from beside him. A cigarette has appeared in his hand.

“What?” John asks stupidly.

George doesn’t reply, merely raises an eyebrow at him.

John watches as Paul sways back and forth where he stands, still grinning and nodding at something one of the birds is saying to him. The girl puts her hand on Paul’s shoulder and he leans his cheek against it and something snaps, deep in John’s chest.

“I’m gonna give him a piece of my fuckin’ mind,” John says and marches down the deck stairs toward Paul.

“Oh no, don’t do that,” George calls after him half-heartedly, looking around for an abandoned drink. “You need your whole mind to be such a lovely gentleman.”

Paul’s eyes light up when John approaches. “Hey! Johnny, did you see that?” He giggles and leans closer to John, dislodging the girl’s hand. “Pretty gear, right?”

_Johnny_ gives him pause. Paul has never called him that before. “Yeah, I guess that’s one phrase you could use to describe it,” he says cautiously.

Paul’s face falls again. “What’s wrong?”

John blurts: “You’ve never had a drink before!... that’s what’s wrong! You have no idea what could happen to you, Paul. Do you know what fuckin’ _alcohol poisonin’_ is? Would you like me to describe it to you?”

There’s a moment of silence, just Paul and this random girl staring at John as though he’s lost his mind. Maybe he has. He can’t imagine he’s once thought about alcohol poisoning in all the time he’s been drinking.

“Y’know what, John? I don’t need this shit from you!” Paul shakes his head unsteadily, eyes darting between John and the ground and the abandoned keg. “I’m not a fuckin’ baby! You don’t need to chaperone me all the fuckin’ time, you’re jus’ as bad as Stuart! An’ you can’t even see it ‘cos your head is so far up your own arse you think you’re doin’ me a _favor_ by hangin’ out with me.” 

Paul, slurring his words, is getting progressively louder and louder, attracting the attention of the yard as a whole. The music seems to have stopped in favor of their conversation. 

_Better entertainment now, eh?_

“I don’t think that,” John says meekly. He shrinks away from Paul, who teeters on his feet.

“Yes, you do! Why can’t you jus’ let me have fun? Do things by myself for a fuckin’ change?”

John takes a deep breath and waits until he’s exhaled completely before he responds. Resists the Mimi-like urge to count to ten. “Y’know what, Paul? Go have fun,” he says, echoing Stu’s words earlier in the evening and regretting it. “Have fun findin’ your own way back home, ‘cos I’m sure Stu won’t take you.”

He turns and heads for the gate at the side of the house, not bothering to go back inside for his coat. John can hear Paul fuming to someone, probably the girl, and tries not to make eye contact with anyone as he leaves. _Show’s over, folks,_ he thinks, and manages to exercise enough self-control to shut the gate without slamming it.

\------

He finds himself in Strawberry Field.

It’s a long walk, but he thinks it’s well worth it since his toes and fingers don’t have time to get frozen. Now that he’s sitting still, they’re freezing, and he wonders why October always has to be cooler than it seems it will be. He’s not exactly cozy in his Van Halen t-shirt.

He should’ve taken George’s excessively warm fur coat on the way out. He shouldn't have gone to the party in the first place.

Should’ve and shouldn’t’ve, should and shouldn’t.

John sighs and lays back on the near-frozen grass, solid and cold against his back. It’s grounding, not only literally but figuratively. The weed is making his brain fuzzy and light, wanting to fly up to the clouds even though there is much more down here to worry about. He pictures a manta ray again and wonders if they might’ve been able to fly in another life, with those humongous ‘wings’ on either side of them, like arms but stretched and thin and too-long.

He thinks it might be nice to be a manta ray, rather than a person. People have to deal with emotions and feelings and thoughts, and maybe manta rays don’t have to deal with any of those. Maybe they have to deal with all of them because the brain needs its emotions the way wings are needed to fly.

_Grow wings and maybe you can fly up into the clouds,_ he thinks. No. Probably not. He’d be put in a lab faster than he could say _nine-foot wingspan._

He’s been to Strawberry Field so many times, in both the dark and the light, but there’s something particularly intriguing about it tonight. Maybe it’s the weed, morphing every color into a shade of dark purple and surrounding the silhouettes with black and blue and gray linings. The sky seems to be endlessly beautiful and beautifully endless; _infinite_ above all. Despite the light pollution, John thinks he might be able to see the stars for once. The Big Dipper. The only one Uncle George knew to teach him.

John has brought Paul here before. They always lie under the same tree, this willow with trailing branches and thick roots perfect to huddle in.

So it is not a surprise that Paul finds him. He knows where to look.

“Hi,” says Paul, approaching from the same direction that John did, carrying John’s flimsy leather jacket. “Can I sit?”

John shrugs. “I don’t care.”

Paul winces. Hands over the coat. “I reckoned you might be cold out here.”

“I’m fine,” John lies and folds the coat in his lap.

“John,” says Paul. His eyes are earnest and his lips are parted and John wants nothing more than to tell him the truth but he thinks… well. _I know the score._

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” Paul says. “Can I talk to you? I think it’ll explain everythin’.”

_You’re surprisingly coherent for someone who drank enough beer to kill a water buffalo not half an hour ago._

“Yeah, whatever,” says John. He wishes he had a cigarette; his hands feel jittery. Maybe George is onto something there.

Paul takes a deep breath, lets it out, and hiccups before he begins.

“Do you remember the week after we first met?” asks Paul.

_I remember every moment we’ve ever spent together._ “Yeah.”

“Do you remember the pool, then? We were there with Ringo and Stu and Astrid… I think George had to work or somethin’. But it doesn’t matter.” Paul waves his hand dismissively and blinks up at John with half-lidded eyes. “We were all talkin’ about how nobody ever jumped off the highest platform, ‘cos you’d end up nearly at the bottom of the pool, an’ it was real hard to get back up once you’d gotten down there. Eleven feet deep or somethin’ like that.”

“I remember,” says John. He’s confused, wondering how exactly this relates to Paul chugging beer for a crowd of people who don’t know his first name. _Maybe Ringo gave him beer or something?_ John frowns.

“An’ I hadn’t gone swimmin’ in nearly two years, an’ I’d never jumped off a platform before,” Paul says, looking almost wistful as he tilts his head at the sky. “But you were jokin’ around about how you’d be impressed if anybody had the guts to do it.”

There’s something fierce on Paul’s face now. He turns to look at John and he says, “I wanted to show you I had the guts, so I got on that platform an’ I jumped right off an’ I hit the bottom of the pool but when I came up… God, you had this look on your face.”

John stares at him, saying nothing. Afraid to say something. Afraid to misinterpret.

“You looked shocked an’ happy an’ _yes_ , impressed. An’ I decided at that moment that I was gonna be your everythin’, no matter how long it took.”

“What are you sayin’?” John asks, voice cracking, terrified and exhilarated and hopeful all at the same time. He leans forward.

“It’s all for you,” says Paul, at first shy and looking down at his feet and then more confident, shoulders back and stealing glances at John and the coat in his lap. “I’ve been tryin’ to get you to… I dunno. Pay attention to me. _Want_ me.”

John is going to explode, and he might be okay with that.

“You probably don’t feel the same way,” says Paul. “But I thought I should tell you, y’know… I’m just tryin’ to impress you.”

“You tried to impress me with a bloody keg stand?”

Paul’s face colors beautifully. “Not really? I jus’ wanted you to think I was, y’know, a real adult an’ stuff.” He glances between his feet and John’s face, looking up at him through thick eyelashes. The breath catches in John’s throat. “I want you to want me,” he says, “like an adult. Like Stu wants Astrid.”

John’s eyebrows go to Mars and Paul is looking down at his feet again, chin practically pressed to his chest with humiliation. What the fuck is he supposed to say to that? What _can_ you say?

“I don’t think of you as a kid,” John chokes out.

“How do you think of me?” Paul asks eagerly. He’s leaning forward with those gorgeous eyes big and soulful, visible even in the dim light, and John thinks he’s going to die here. They can leave his bones underneath a tree in Strawberry Field, and his tombstone can read _you’d die too if Paul McCartney were looking at you like that._

John is struggling to decide what to say when Paul launches himself on John and presses their lips together with a little too much enthusiasm. He feels their teeth knock together and thinks of Paul biting his lip in Tommy’s living room and groans.

Paul’s hands fly up to tangle in his hair and he has only a moment to mourn the perfect poof of his bangs, quickly distracted by the merciless tugging on his hair and the swipe of Paul’s tongue at his lips. He makes another noise, feeling helpless under Paul’s grasp, and allows.

Paul is licking rhythmically into his mouth and massaging at his hip when John begins to wonder whether Paul’s ever been kissed before or if he’s simply a natural talent. But then Paul’s hips grind down against his like this is his fucking profession and John whimpers.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembers Paul’s _drunk._ Like out of his mind drunk. And fourteen.

_What the fuck am I doing?_

John’s eyes snap open and he pulls away from Paul, who’s looking down at him with pure adoration. He looks gorgeous, hair mussed and lips swollen, but how much of that is from the kissing, and how much is from the alcohol?

“What’s wrong?” Paul asks.

John can’t seem to speak, looking up at a boy haloed in moonlight, somehow casually perched atop John’s lap.

“Is it me? It’s me, isn’t it?”

“What?” John croaks.

“Please,” Paul says, suddenly sounding desperate. His eyes are wide as he wraps his hands around John’s shoulders. “I don’t care what you do, you can pretend I’m someone else if that’s what you hafta do, but _please_ don’t make me leave--”

“What?” John repeats. “No, I’m not gonna do that.” Paul’s brain seems to be going far faster than his own.

Crippled by the drugs, probably. Should’ve listened to all those bloody health teachers.

“It doesn’t have to mean anythin’ if you don’t want it to,” Paul says.

“Don’t want it to mean what?”

“If you sleep with me,” Paul says, lowering his eyes again. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

“Whoa, what? I’m not gonna do that!” John tries to scoot out from under Paul. He’s totally fucked, and not even in the way Paul is talking about. _Holy shit._

This is probably John’s purgatory. Heaven and hell both mocking him. He wants to shake his fist at the sky, but figures that might just further confuse the boy sitting on his lap.

“Oh,” says Paul, and now he looks like he might cry. “Oh, okay. Yeah.” He hurriedly backs away, standing up and hunching his shoulders up to his ears. Refusing to meet John’s eyes. “I’m sorry. We can jus’ pretend this never happened.”

“What the _hell,_ ” John says. “Jus’... jus’ slow down for a minute, alright? I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

Paul blinks down at him with wet eyes. “I’m sorry.”

John frowns. “Why’re you sorry? I’m not angry.”

“I shouldn’t have tried to kiss you,” Paul mutters.

“I mean, there wasn’t really any _try_ about it. That was… bloody good. Job well done,” John says, and wonders if there’s a nearby car that he can throw himself in front of.

Paul bites his lip, fidgeting with the hem of his coat. There’s the tiniest of smiles on his face. “Then why’d you push me away?” Paul asks in an equally tiny voice.

“You’re drunk an’ I don’t want you to do somethin’ you’ll regret,” John says. Paul sighs.

“Well, I won’t,” he says, sitting back down and looking at John all eagerly again. _God. This would be so much easier if you weren’t so beautiful._ “I’ve been thinkin’ about this since we met.”

Doing his best to ignore the fact that Paul’s just added a log to the fire burning low in his stomach, John shakes his head. “You’re drunk. You’ve never even been drunk before.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Paul insists, scooting closer. “This is why I got drunk.”

John pauses. “You got drunk to try an’ seduce me?”

Paul nods and has the decency to look ashamed of himself. “I didn’t think I’d be able to do it if I was sober.”

Shaking his head, John looks down at his feet so that he doesn’t have to look at Paul. _This is fucking mad,_ he thinks. _What am I supposed to tell him?_ Well, what could he tell him anyway? If Paul’s anything like John, he won’t remember half of this in the morning, especially attempting to ‘seduce’ one of his mates.

_He tried to seduce me._ Holy shit.

Paul’s talking again. “All I bloody do is to impress you,” he says, swaying slightly in his seat. It could be the alcohol or it could just be Paul, never still and never quiet. “I was hopin’ you would be impressed by the stupid drinkin’, finally think of me as your age, ‘cos then maybe you’d notice me, y’know?” He grins at John. “I’m always tryin’ to get you to notice me. I wanna be everythin’ to you.”

“Christ, you’re drunk,” John mutters and is grateful for the darkness hiding the blush on his face. _If only you knew._ “We need to take you home.”

His friend’s eyes go huge. “No! Nonono, I’m okay, don’t take me home. I’ll stop bloody talkin’.”

“I’ve never heard you say the word _bloody_ in your life.”

“An’ I never will again, if it makes you happy,” Paul says, batting his eyelashes.

John shakes his head. “Macca, you’ve gotta stop.”

Paul frowns and his entire head seems to droop with it. “Why? You said you liked it when I kissed you.”

Sighing, John shifts closer and reaches out to cup Paul’s face in his hands. His legs are starting to go numb from the cold. “I did,” he says, “but I also said that you’re drunk an’ I don’t wanna talk about this when you’re drunk.”

Paul’s lips part and his lashes flutter and John’s resolve weakens just enough to lean in and press their lips together again, just for a moment before he backs away. Paul frowns.

“Don’t do that if you’re jus’ gonna tell me we can’t do that,” he says, pouting, and John smiles despite himself.

“If you want to kiss me so bad, try it when you haven’t just drank enough to put the McCartney family aunts to shame.”

John wraps his arm around Paul, pulling him to his side and holding him there.

“I _wanted_ to try earlier,” Paul admits, curling into John. “In the kitchen. But then you wouldn’t have the excuse of me bein’ drunk, you’d jus’ tell me I’m too young.” His tone is suddenly bitter and John uncurls himself from around Paul to look down at him, frowning.

“You think I’m makin’ excuses?” John asks softly.

“I know you are,” Paul says.

John shakes his head and wishes desperately that he hadn’t let Paul have that first beer. Maybe he could’ve stopped this all from happening, and he could’ve just told him the truth right there in the car. _Not like Astrid and Stu would’ve noticed._ “I’m not makin’ excuses, love.”

Paul’s face softens and then hardens again. “Then _kiss me._ ”

“You’re drunk!” John protests. “It’s not a fuckin’ excuse if I’m tryin’ to keep you from throwin’ yourself at me. Thank God it was me and not some other guy. Could’ve gotten your teeth punched out for your troubles.”

“But it’s _you,_ ” says Paul, more a whisper than anything, like he’s not sure if he wants John to hear or not. “I wouldn’t’ve tried it on anyone else. Told you you’re the one I want, didn’t I?”

All of a sudden, John realizes that Paul is serious about this. “You mean it?”

Paul glares at him. “ _Obviously._ You think I’d be so obsessed with you otherwise?” He pauses, looking mortified. “I’m not obsessed. Wrong word. I jus’... think about you a lot.”

He opens his mouth to say something and can’t quite find the words.

“I’m sorry,” Paul says. “I fucked this one up.”

John reaches out to cup Paul’s jaw again and kisses him as a response.

Paul doesn’t reciprocate for a moment, just sitting there, and then it’s like he snaps out of a trance; kisses back and puts his hands up under John’s shirt and John pulls away.

“ _Cold!_ You arse!” he exclaims and the tension is diffused as he tries to pull Paul’s hands out from under his shirt. He’s just now realizing that his friend doesn’t have a coat either; Paul is sitting there in a t-shirt just like him and his hands are bitterly cold.

Paul’s laughing-- the _audacity_ \--as John tries to shake him off.

“Get off me, your hands are freezin’!”

“Excuses, excuses,” Paul murmurs.

He does back off. If backing off means cuddling up to John and tucking his hands under his shirt-- despite the protests put up --and shoving his way underneath John’s arm.

“‘M not that drunk,” Paul says as they look up at the stars.

“If I took you home right now, Jim would think you had been knocked upside the head with a wooden mallet. ‘Cos there’s no fuckin’ way you’ve just had beer.”

Paul giggles. “‘S not. Lucy gave me two shots and I had a glass of wine. Plus the beer you gave me, an’ the kegstand.”

John shakes his head incredulously. “If you ever try to impress me again, I’ll kill you.”

“I’m always tryin’ to impress you,” Paul repeats. “That’s the whole point, I want you to like me.” He pauses, poking John between the ribs. “Well, you an’ everyone else, but especially you.”

“I already like you,” John says, and watches Paul’s face light up. As though his affection for Paul wasn’t obvious to anybody with eyes. “Even though you play Duran Duran while I’m drivin’.”

“I like you even though you don’t want to dance at parties.”

“Hey, I could dance at parties!” John protests, and Paul’s laughing again. “I don’t wanna dance with some bird who doesn’t remember my name ‘cos I don’t play rugby.”

“You could dance with me,” Paul offers.

“An’ have every girl in the room try to trip me when I walk by? No thanks.” Never mind the fact that he would get beaten up and called dirty names for even trying.

Paul giggles again and John wishes he could bottle that sound, keep it on a record player or something to hear it every day for the rest of his life.

They fall into a comfortable silence, looking up at the stars, and John wonders what everyone at the party’s doing. Probably smoking more weed and drinking like it’s the end of the world and making time with girls and guys they’d never speak to at school. He thinks of the boys in rugby shirts and the girls in tiny dresses and wonders if they know how unlucky they are, to be missing out on Paul. He wonders if Sarah and Lucille and Jenny know he’s left the party, or if they ever even really noticed Paul was there in the first place. Just another faceless conquest to them.

_They don’t know how lucky they are,_ John thinks, turning on his side and reaching over to swipe his thumb across Paul’s cheekbone. Paul’s expression softens as he leans into the touch. _All those girls getting the chance to hear your voice and touch you, in front of everybody else, and not one of them knows what they have in front of them._

“Is it really all for me?” John whispers, watching Paul’s pale, beautiful face glow in the moonlight.

_You’re a painting waiting to happen,_ he thinks, and then realizes that he can probably ask for that now. After all, Paul could ask him for anything and he would give it to him. That’s the thing about love.

“Always,” Paul whispers, and that slow grin splits his pretty face in two. “It’s never not for you.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is self-indulgent and I'm not even a little sorry about it. Was lovely to write a oneshot after the beast that was Great Motorbike Chase. Please feel free to let me know what you think, I really appreciate constructive criticism-- and definitely don't wait at my computer for comments, no sir.
> 
> This fic is based on the song Manta Rays by Chloe Moriondo and it's excellent, so I definitely suggest you check it out! I'm probably going to turn this into a series of oneshots of varying lengths, all based on different songs. Hopefully, I'm continually inspired by the twelve songs I listen to on repeat. If you have a specific song/prompt in mind, feel free to let me know either through the comments or over Tumblr at flightofthebluealiens.
> 
> Thank you to mossintheconcrete, as always, for beta-ing this hot mess. Truly the champion of my heart. And thank YOU for reading, I hope you've enjoyed!!


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